When I was a young blogger (yes, cast your minds back through the mists of time to that faraway day), I would always see other book bloggers talking about their friend Amy, always with such affection that it took me ages and ages to realize that “My Friend Amy” was the actual name of her blog.
If you’ve ever seen old-lady-bloggers like me on Twitter talking about how cozy and close-knit the blogosphere used to be, it’s partly a function of its having been smaller, and partly a function of My Friend Amy. She was one of those bloggers who seemed to be everywhere, commenting on everyone’s blog, posting about books she was reading and bookish events she was attending and movies she was watching — I was, frankly, intimidated.
An insane thing to be, by the way. If there’s one thing that has always characterized Amy, it’s how unbelievably nice she is, and she was never anything but helpful and welcoming and kind to baby bloggers like me. (A baby blogger and a baby adult, as I started blogging when I was still young and dumb and very, very shy.)
Book Blogger Appreciation Week was Amy’s brainchild and her baby. Under her supervision, it was a many-headed monster that required oodles of bloggers to keep it running smoothly. (We are doing a drastically pared-down version because, well, frankly, I am not an administrative genius like Amy or Alexander Hamilton.) Many of the people I now count among my closest internet friends — some of whom I’ve met in real life at this point! — got added to my Google Reader (sigh) because I’d seen other bloggers singing their praises during Book Blogger Appreciation Week.
If I have a hope for this week, it’s that Book Blogger Appreciation Week can make you feel a little bit the same way Amy always made me feel: That sense of belonging to a community that loves you and wants to shout about you as much as we want to shout about our favorite books. Thanks, Amy, for making this possible!